Can I disable cropping?

SteveF

Hello,

I'm in the process of setting up a smugmug site.

I have composed and cropped my photos exactly as I want them.

Can I disable the cropping options in the shopping cart such that a print can only be ordered as I have composed it - i.e. with white borders as needed on 2 edges of the paper? (Or not if it happens to match one of the print sizes.)

This seems especially important with panos - someone ordering a crop out of the middle just isn't what I'm after.

thanks,

jfriend

SteveF wrote:

Hello,

I'm in the process of setting up a smugmug site.

I have composed and cropped my photos exactly as I want them.

Can I disable the cropping options in the shopping cart such that a print can only be ordered as I have composed it - i.e. with white borders as needed on 2 edges of the paper? (Or not if it happens to match one of the print sizes.)

This seems especially important with panos - someone ordering a crop out of the middle just isn't what I'm after.

thanks,

I don't believe that Smugmug gives you any ability to disable cropping. If you have a pro account, you can enable proof delay so you can preview and/or modify everything that is ordered before it's printed so that no cropping mistakes are made.

Have you disabled every single print size that doesn't match your photo exactly? If not, then some sort of cropping will be needed or a print will be undersize (e.g. not fill the printed size). For example, if you have a 3:2 camera, then one can't print an 8x10 without some sort of cropping or not end up with an 8x10.

SteveF

Hello,

Thanks for the reply.

That was my hunch as I looked through the system and couldn't find a way to do it.

I'm trying to set up my site to sell 'fine art' prints.

Not that in any way I am comparing myself to a good photographer, but can you imagine if a customer walked into an Ansel Adams gallery or a Galen Rowell gallery (or whoever) and said that they would like that print of half-dome, but "could you crop off that part on the left"?

The galleries wouldn't do this as there is value in how the photographer has composed the image. Supposedly they are the expert in composition and have thought about it a lot and gotten the image as good as it can be.

Anyway, thanks for the response. I'll post this on the feature request board.

Andy

Just set to proof delay. If the customer crops then you can recrop to no crop.

It's that simple

jfriend

SteveF wrote:

Hello,

Thanks for the reply.

That was my hunch as I looked through the system and couldn't find a way to do it.

I'm trying to set up my site to sell 'fine art' prints.

Not that in any way I am comparing myself to a good photographer, but can you imagine if a customer walked into an Ansel Adams gallery or a Galen Rowell gallery (or whoever) and said that they would like that print of half-dome, but "could you crop off that part on the left"?

The galleries wouldn't do this as there is value in how the photographer has composed the image. Supposedly they are the expert in composition and have thought about it a lot and gotten the image as good as it can be.

Anyway, thanks for the response. I'll post this on the feature request board.

Also, most people don't go cropping to remove part of the image. In fact, the majority of folks that I see in my proof delay reviews don't even touch the cropping when they should. Cropping is needed to match any print size that isn't a perfect match for the aspect ratio of the print. That's the main reason for the cropping.

Anyway, as Andy said, you have total control over the crop that goes to print if you set proof delay and just review it. That way you can have the best of both worlds. You can offer some sizes that aren't a perfect match, but still be in control of the final crop.

SteveF

Andy wrote:

Just set to proof delay. If the customer crops then you can recrop to no crop.

It's that simple

Hello,

Not to belabor a point, but this to me isn't ideal.

If a customer crops my 8x16 to 8x12 and then gets an 8x16 in the mail they really haven't gotten what they ordered.

It seems to me a much more elegant solution to be able to disable cropping. The print will appear as I want it to and it won't be up to the customer to crop their own art.

jfriend

SteveF wrote:

Hello,

Not to belabor a point, but this to me isn't ideal.

If a customer crops my 8x16 to 8x12 and then gets an 8x16 in the mail they really haven't gotten what they ordered.

It seems to me a much more elegant solution to be able to disable cropping. The print will appear as I want it to and it won't be up to the customer to crop their own art.

If they crop your 8x16 down to 8x12 and you adjust the image so there no image cropped off, they won't get an 8x16 in the mail. They will get a 6x12 with 2 inches of white border. You can't change their order to something larger and more expensive than what they picked. So, if they picked 8x12, you can only change the cropping to something that fits on an 8x12 (which would be 6x12). There isn't a great solution there.

Unfortunately, Smugmug doesn't offer many print sizes that work well for panos. They only have 4x8 and 10x20 that match your print without either cropping or extra white border.

The only other thing I could suggest would be to switch to self-fulfillment where you pick exactly what sizes you want to offer and then use embedded paypal HTML to allow them to purchase one of those sizes. When ordered, you get them printed locally, trim them to the exact finished dimension for the pano and mail them out. Lots more work on your part, but it solves your issues.

SteveF

It really seems the easy fix is to disable cropping on checkout.

I'll post it on the Suggestions thread.

Candid Arts

I'm going to have to agree with SteveF on this. Has anything like this been added to the features?

Example: My aunt ordered some prints from my room mate of a wedding we shot about a month ago. The photo was a full body shot of the bride, groom, bride's mom and dad. It was Dad on Left, then Groom, Bride, and Bride's mom. There was plenty of room around all the edges so it wasn't cropped tightly around their bodies. When my aunt ordered it, she cropped that ENTIRE image down to just the B&G from shoulder up. This was the most extreme case of cropping on an order I've ever seen. She did some crops on other photos as well that were just ridiculous. Cutting wedding dress off, putting the people in the dead center of the photo when they were originally not. It's decisions like this that the photographer made intentionally, and now someone is just completely throwing them out the window.

I realize that we can proof delay, and completely change how the photo is cropped to make it back to the way that I (the photographer) decided originally, but then the customer get's the photo and it's not what they ordered. Cropping out even 10% of what the photographer chose to display to me is even unacceptable. I understand that in a 5x7 format there is no choice, but that is why I only offer 3:2 ratio prints, with the exception of the 5x7, and nothing else. Because I make my photos how I want them, I don't want customer's deciding that for themselves. If they like the photo they like it, if not, they don't.

I believe that's all I have to say right now.

Thanks for listening.

Andy

Candid Arts wrote:

If they like the photo they like it, if not, they don't.

I believe that's all I have to say right now.

Thanks for listening.

Think about the event shooter - who wants to offer all types of aspect ratios. Putting the knife in the hands of the buyer eliminated tons of problems all the way around, then proof delay on your end, can catch bad or crops you don't want.

I wish I had a better solution!

jfriend

Andy wrote:

Think about the event shooter - who wants to offer all types of aspect ratios. Putting the knife in the hands of the buyer eliminated tons of problems all the way around, then proof delay on your end, can catch bad or crops you don't want.

I wish I had a better solution!

That explains why some pros want their customers to have this choice and that is fine.

That does not show that all pros want it that way or explain why you don't offer the pro control over whether cropping is offered as an option on their site or not.

Andy

jfriend wrote:

That explains why some pros want their customers to have this choice and that is fine.

That does not show that all pros want it that way or explain why you don't offer the pro control over whether cropping is offered as an option on their site or not.

We might consider it, but honestly, I'm very worried about it. 1,000,000 orders later and our returns rate is so amazingly low. I'm afraid to mess with it. We also very cautiously think about any addition to the UI, it adds yet more complexity.
But thanks for posting about this, it's quite good to talk about it.

Right now, Proof Delay is the way to go. Pro has full control over the crop and if they change customer's crop dramatically, the pro can just email the customer

jfriend

Andy wrote:

We might consider it, but honestly, I'm very worried about it. 1,000,000 orders later and our returns rate is so amazingly low. I'm afraid to mess with it. We also very cautiously think about any addition to the UI, it adds yet more complexity.
But thanks for posting about this, it's quite good to talk about it.

Right now, Proof Delay is the way to go. Pro has full control over the crop and if they change customer's crop dramatically, the pro can just email the customer

It gets to the heart of whether you fully embrace letting the pro control these types of experience choices on their own site or whether you want to dictate what you think is best.

There are two ends of the spectrum here. Certainly when a family hobbiest posts a bunch of photos, they aren't going to make sure every image has a perfect crop for the print sizes that they offer so the only consumer solution that has a chance here is to put the crop in the hands of the buyer. That's less than ideal though because many buyers have no idea what they're doing with crops either (as I can attest from reviewing prints ordered on my site in proof delay - I almost always have to fix crops).

On the other end of the spectrum is the pro who wants to control the entire experience and offering. They have no interest in allowing a giant crop from a group shot that leads to a crummy 5x7 print of one person's face from the group shot. That isn't the type of quality they want to sell. Yes if they see this in proof delay, they could contact the customer, but if the customer doesn't want any other type of crop and the pro doesn't want to sell what they cropped, then it gets messy. The only way out is to cancel the entire order and start over (because the pro isn't allowed to drop one item from the order).

I don't know how often this happens in real life, but I can certainly understand why pros think they want control over this part of the offering.

Candid Arts

Thank you jfriend. You understand.

This is the example I spoke about earlier...:



This should not be allowed. Even with the proof delay, like stated earlier, you change it, then the customer didn't get what they want. If you contact them and they only want it like that and the photographer isn't going to crop it, then what, cancel the order, customer is upset, etc... messy messy.

if they don't even have the opportunity to crop it, then none of this is even an issue. There wouldn't be any returns as they know and see what they are ordering when they order it, if they don't like how it is, then they won't order it.

So yeah. Ok.

Andy

Candid Arts wrote:

If you contact them and they only want it like that and the photographer isn't going to crop it, then what, cancel the order, customer is upset, etc... messy messy.

No, we refund if they're really upset, they just have tear up the pic they didn't want, and give us a snapshot. Or they can return it (on our dime).

It happens so rarely.

PBolchover

In defense of the granny who ordered those shots, perhaps she felt that the shot of the 4 people was the one that had the best expressions of the bride and groom, but she wasn't interested in the other two people in the shot...